Meet the Author

The FermentedlyChallenged blog has been retired since the end of October 2016. It has been a great 9 year run. Thanks to all the readers and brewery staff for all your support in the past. I'm living in the Denver metro area and working in the Cable TV industry now. Cheers and enjoy beer responsibly. Follow along on social media - @ChipperDave on Twitter and on Facebook.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

I've recently started acquiring some additional homebrewing equipment and decided to take my new propane gas burner for a test drive. The burner I purchased was a Bayou Classic SP10.

The Bayou Classic SP10 is a powerful little gas burner capable of putting out over 185,000 BTUs. That's enough heat to bring 10 gallons of 60 degree water up to a boil in 40 minutes or so. I found a great deal on one on Amazon.com for less than $45. The price there seems to vary between $39 and $52. Best of all, you can get one shipped out in less than 5 days and pay no shipping costs from there. Now that's a bargain!

I decided to take the Bayou Classic SP10 out for a test drive. I've read in a couple different homebrew forums that you should test burn this device before homebrewing with it as fumes from the paint tend to be strong upon the first use.

Bayou Classic paints this unit black and it looks great out of the box, but when you "flame on" for the first time, all that black paint around the rim is going to burn off and will give off some harsh odors and yield a bit of white ash. So it's best to fire it up and burn off that top paint first before using it with your homebrewing.

I made a short 3-minute video to demonstrate just exactly what happens to the paint the first time you try out this burner. You'll see why in no time why you should take this for a test drive prior to your first homebrew. Keep in mind that this unit started off all black. By the end of the video you'll see what the 1st 20 minutes will do to that paint job. You can also watch this on YouTube.

I let the unit burn for about 20 minutes. It started up just fine right out of the box. There is an adjustment you can make to change the mix of air with the propane to tweak the flame. I suggest playing with that a bit to get the flame to burn the way you want it.

Overall, I was very pleased with how this unit worked. I can't wait now to try some test boils on my new brew kettle. I should have some information on how long it takes to bring 10 gallons up to boil in a few days.

Update: Later on when I used it for a couple more hours, even more paint came off the top circular rim of the unit. Once most of that black paint is gone you shouldn't need to worry about the ash floating around and getting into your beer. It took adding a boiling pot with water on top for the heat to burn off more of the black paint around the rim.

Important News (9/10/2012) - Apparently, newer models (2012) of the Bayou Classic SP10 may no longer have the 185,000 BTU output, but are rather 55,000 BTUs. Be sure to read all of the specs on the new model before purchasing.